A danger to subsea wellheads is damage sustained by iceberg scouring. Efforts have been made to protect wellhead assemblies from iceberg scouring by placing wellhead assemblies in excavated areas. Examples of such efforts are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,461,951 and 3,952,263. Other attempts to protect wellheads include placing covers, shields and anchor devices to protect the subsea wellhead. An example of such a device is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,421.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,527 teaches a wellhead assembly for a subsea well having an anchor base on the bottom surrounding the wellbore of the well. A first conductor in the wellbore is connected to the anchor base, a second conductor has an upper end within the lower end of the first conductor. The anchor base and conductors are cemented in the wellbore. A weak point is created between the first connector and the second connector that is designed to release under iceberg scouring so that the first conductor and the production tubing break away and the second conductor remains in the wellbore.
Although providing a weak point in the well is desirable, a problem with the prior art designs is that time consuming and expensive steps are required to install the equipment necessary to provide a weak point.